Member Avatar for jbennet

Right, I have a dual PII 266mhz each Compaq Proliant 1600r Rackmount Server with 512mb of ram, IDE CD, 2gb IDE HDD, and 3 2gb SCSI HDD'S. Should I install GRUB for fedora on had1 or sda1. The IDE HDD is new by the way. I know the server is old itselff but its just meant to be a firewall / router.

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Short answer: the bootloader must be written to the disk the ProLiant firmware actually boots from — in this case the first SCSI disk. Given the installer is trying to put GRUB on the new IDE drive, two practical approaches work: follow 's hardware workaround and make the IDE drive invisible during install, or install now and then reinstall GRUB to the SCSI MBR from rescue/live media. With 's layout (/boot on the SCSI first disk), putting GRUB on /dev/sda will ensure the firmware finds it.

A reliable rescue/chroot procedure (assumes /boot on /dev/sda1 and root on /dev/sda2):

# Boot a rescue or LiveCD and get a root shell
mkdir /mnt/sysimage
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sysimage
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sysimage/boot
mount -t proc proc /mnt/sysimage/proc
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev
mount -t sysfs sys /mnt/sysimage/sys
chroot /mnt/sysimage /bin/bash

# Reinstall GRUB to the disk MBR
grub-install /dev/sda

# Legacy grub alternative:
grub
  root (hd0,0)
  setup (hd0)
  quit

exit
reboot

Troubleshooting notes and cautions: confirm device mapping with fdisk -l before reinstalling GRUB (device names can shift between installer and runtime). Ensure /boot is actually mounted in the rescue environment. Install GRUB to the disk MBR (e.g. /dev/sda), not to a partition like /dev/sda1, unless intentionally targeting a partition. If a minimal boot floppy lacks required SCSI modules, use a full LiveCD or the installer’s rescue mode which includes SCSI drivers. After adding the IDE drive back and populating /home, update /etc/fstab (prefer UUIDs or labels for stability) so mounts survive any device-order changes.

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Member Avatar for alc6379

It really depends... which drive do you want to boot from?

If the system can do either, then it doesn't matter-- just pick a drive to install to, and go from there.

Member Avatar for jbennet

The server by default boots off of the rigfirst SCSI drive and you cant change this setting. However, linux tries to install GRUB o the new IDE drive and when i restart, the system wont boot as the boot loader is on the wrong drive. You can change the gruib location under graphical install but I am using text due to my 1mb graphics card - its rubbish

This means I cant get in to lnux. A friend reccomended a boot floppy but the installer says tehre are too many modules needed, SCSI, RAID etc... to fit on one.

Member Avatar for alc6379

Can you remove the IDE hard drive while installing? what are you mounting it as when you install?

I can tell you this much-- removing that drive will force it to install to /dev/sda. Otherwise, you could use a LiveCD like Knoppix, and chroot into your installation. From there, you could configure grub yourself however you need it to be done.

Member Avatar for jbennet

I am puting /home on the new drive which I got as our areas are getting too big and installing the system rest of the system on the 2 scsi drives, with /boot and swap partitions on sda1 and / on sda2.

I need the IDE drive in whern I install to configure it for /home but damn anaconda wants to install GRUB to it which is wrong. GRUB must be on sda1.

Could I install it as above and use the rescue CD to reinstall grub on the correct HDD?

Member Avatar for alc6379

Why not just leave the drive out at install time?

Simply install without the IDE drive in, then insert the drive, and initialize it, and edit /etc/fstab to mount the drive as /home, and migrate the user's files over. That's all it should take.

Member Avatar for jbennet

Ok ill think ill just leave it blank and unformatted at install time then do it later as you said. Id rather not take it out as its a server where you have to unlcok the doro, take out the security screws, slide it along the rails etc........ (It takes ages)

Thanks!

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